a fan's got to do what a fan's got to do

In my copious free time, I'm a member of a very loose tribe called science fiction fandom.
It's hard to explain fandom to people who are outside it. Sometimes, it's hard to explain it
to people who are inside it. Try to imagine it, if you will, as a bunch of people with
very widely diverse interests that trace back to science fiction in some way. The connection
is often tenuous; there are people in fandom who don't actually read or watch
SF.

filk? what's filk?

Glad you asked. To mangle Randall Garrett, "filk is a matter of symbolism and intent." Or,
if you prefer, "filk is what I point to when I say filk." It's certainly musical; it means
that I sit around late at night with people who I consider friends, some of us with instruments,
some of us with voices, all of us enjoying the music. I've written a few songs and I've put most of
the lyrics online, along with RealAudio streams of
some of them. I can't answer for their absolute quality; I just write the stuff I like. Some people
must like them, since I've been honored with Pegasus Award
nominations, Interfilk
sent me to Consonance in March, 2001, and
was the Filk Waif at FilkOntario
in April of 2002.

For some insane reason, I ran filk programming at
Lunacon and The Millenium
Philcon. Now I know better. It won't stop me from doing it again, but
I know better.